Sympathising with people trying to
navigate a maze of media messages about dieting, Dr Burrows is seeking to
address – and clear up – the confusion in her research. The engineer student-turned-dietitian
has taken a particular interest in childhood obesity, experimenting with
biochemical validation methods to help solidify our contemporary understanding
of its causes and identify potential treatments.

Burrows' curiousity about diet-related
disorders, such as obesity, was first sparked during her PhD candidateship,
which saw her analyse the findings of a multi-centre probe into the best
treatment options of child obesity. Run at the Universities of Newcastle and
Wollongong, the project sought to determine the most effective treatment for
child obesity and to oust biases in current diet assessment procedures by
comparing them with more objective means. Researchers undertook an extensive
series of outcome measures with parents and their school-aged children and
followed them up for two years. As an advanced accredited dietitian, Burrows was
specifically interested in if they could change their dietary intakes and
further their fruit and vegetable consumption, and used biomarkers in the
bloodstream to verify their responses.

'It's a unique approach because most
dietitians would just take peoples' answers for what they are,' she says.

'But we were able to take away the issues
with memory recall and social bias by creating a somewhat lie-detector test.'

The project also included a randomised
control trial for the treatment of childhood obesity. Parent dietary support
and physical activity were split between three groups, with one group receiving
both interventions.

'To the general population the trial
seems very straightforward, but at the time this was the first of its kind in
Australia,' Burrows notes.

'It was new in the scientific world.'

Burrows continued looking into
diet-related disorders after receiving her PhD in 2008, refining the approach
of the Obesity Program to broaden its application to low-income families and Indigenous
populations, as well as after-school care children. The expert dietitian also extended
her biochemical validation method to include red blood cell membrane fatty
acids, and conducted an additional study using Gold Standard procedures of
doubly labelled water to help determine the most accurate reporter of child
food intake.

'In the clinical world, everyone
assumes the mum is going to be the best to talk to,' she says.

'But we disproved this, showing that
the child is actually the better of all three, closely followed by the dad and
then the mum.'

Shifting
the focus

Burrows' research also helped identify
another gap in our contemporary understanding of obesity. Taking an
interdisciplinary approach to this latest study, she is collaborating with
international academics in the psychology, biochemistry, and medical radiation
imaging fields to dispel belief in a singular cause.

'If we can prove that food addiction is
real, then we can also show cause for the behavioural components of obesity,'
she says.

'It could be that treatments need to be
reworked so they hit these targets as well as the more obvious diet and
physical activity ones.'

Burrows has adapted the validation
model used in her PhD for the ongoing probe, opting to access the traits of
food addiction by conducting a cross-sectional survey of 600 young adults with
her team and then 'fact checking' the self-reported findings in multiple brain
scans.

'It's a young area of research but we
know that objective measures are really important,' she says.

'We're in the process of getting some
answers, which is quite exciting.'

Leading the specialist squad since the
project's inception in 2012 has also allowed Burrows to distinguish herself
from other fledgling researchers.

'It's my first time in the driver's
seat,' she says.

'I was looking to become independent,
but I wanted to continue the biochemical validation and obesity research I'd
been a part of previously too.'

'My hard work paid off and I was lucky
enough to get both.'

Engaging
the masses

Still an active clinician, Burrows is simultaneously
involved in the relaying of dietetic services and teaching to rural
communities. Hoping to bridge 'what is' with 'what could be,' some of her recent
grants are dedicated to the growing study of e-health resources.

Balancing
act

Burrows has moulded herself into a
published author, a thesis examiner, a conference presenter, a postgraduate
work supervisor, and a member of several national and international health associations.
She is also in the top 1% of Australian dietitians with an advanced
accreditation title.

Giving weight to the old adage,
'success breeds success,' this expertise in paediatric nutrition contributed to
a team led by Professor Phil Morgan, which was recognised in 2014 with an award
from the World Health Organisation for Excellence in Obesity Prevention. Burrows
received the nod for her involvement in the winning community-based initiative,
Healthy Dads Healthy Kids, which aims to make healthy eating and exercise a
regular part of father-child interactions. The program has since been delivered
across a number of local government areas in NSW, with significant improvements
in a host of physical and mental health outcomes readily observed.

Burrows was also shortlisted for the
L'Oreal Women in Science Fellowship in 2014 – an achievement that stands out in
a list of many.

'People don't often associate dietetics
with science,' she concedes.

'But nutrition is science, and I'm
really happy it's starting to get noticed as such.'